PAS-C01 Design of SAP Workloads on AWS Practice Question
A company needs to back up its SAP HANA database running on AWS. The backup must be stored in a durable and cost-effective manner. Which AWS service should the company use for long-term backup storage?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse Amazon Glacier as a separate service rather than recognizing it as a storage class within Amazon S3, and they overlook that AWS Backup is an orchestration layer, not the primary storage target for SAP HANA's native Backint integration.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Amazon S3
Amazon S3 is the correct choice for long-term backup storage of SAP HANA databases on AWS because it offers 99.999999999% durability, is cost-effective with lifecycle policies to transition data to lower-cost tiers like S3 Glacier Deep Archive, and supports native integration with SAP HANA backup tools via the SAP HANA Backint agent for S3. This allows direct backup to S3 without intermediate storage, meeting both durability and cost requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon EBS snapshots
Why it's wrong here
EBS snapshots are stored in S3 but are not directly accessible as files for SAP HANA backup.
- ✗
Amazon Glacier
Why it's wrong here
Glacier is for archival with retrieval times of minutes to hours, not for regular backups.
- ✗
AWS Backup
Why it's wrong here
AWS Backup is a service that manages backups, but the storage target is S3.
- ✓
Amazon S3
Why this is correct
S3 is ideal for durable and cost-effective backup storage.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PAS-C01 exam.